Reasons to Remember
by WhimsicalMayhem
Summary: For the longest time, all Aziff Cadash wanted to do was forget. Forget her time in the Carta, forget what she had to become to survive. That all changed when she went to the Conclave. When she had a being with a floppy hat save her from her own mind. When she had reasons to remember. A series of prompt-inspired ficlets. Mostly Cole/Inquisitor, some other characters included.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: So it has happened. I've joined the DA:I train. And guess who I fell head over heels for because they are the sweetest little sprit to ever save me from an Envy demon? ^.^_

_SO I give you these little prompts. I'm unsure how many I'll do, but I've already got ten planned out now, and number can only grow right? Not all of them are Cole/Inquisitor, but a good portion of them are. My Inquisitor is named Aziff Cadash and she is a dwarf fighter; slight warning of background. She lived in Dusttown before the Carta shipped her topside._

_Keep your hand and feet in the fic at all times and thank you for stopping by my humble little story. Enjoy Reasons to Remember._

#1. Evidence

Aziff Cadash was one of those people who had to see it to believe it. Like the Stone, magic, lyrium; she had seen these things, felt these things, and knew them to be true. She had _met _her ancestors before they returned to the Stone; even had a few drinks with them. To tell her they _weren't_ still hanging around was silly; whenever she was underground she could hear them humming in the caverns.

This whole Andraste thing was...not so solid.

She _had _seen a woman in the Rift. She _had_ reached out to Aziff; a helping hand if Aziff had ever seen one.

So Aziff Cadash had seen it. But was it real? And _what did that mean?_

The dwarf glared down at the mark on her palm. _Anchor. Key. Andraste's Chosen._

There it was right there; her evidence that something had happened. Something big. She just didn't know the what questions she should ask to get the answers she seeked.

Or if she truly wanted those answers at all.

Aziff had grown up a dirty duster living in the squalor of Orzammar's underbelly. She had often scoffed at the topside religions. Why would she waste time lamenting over some bigger-than-thou being and blaming her problems on it when she should be fessing up to her problems herself, because they were just that; hers. The Stone had been all she needed to believe; her Ancestors lead her through the dark, and, occasionally, allowed her insight. The rest of her faith, which at the time wasn't much but hope and a sturdy shield, was piled into working towards a better life for herself.

Needless to say, 'Harold of Andraste' had not been what she had in mind.

So where did that leave her? Was she a prophet? A champion of a Goddess she never believed in?

The dwarf let out a groan and set her head against the desk, softly bumping her forehead into the cool wood at regular intervals.

"Frustrated. Confused. Wishes she could see through the fog, but she can't. Blinding, binding, boggling. She thinks questions will get her answers, but the light just makes it harder to see."

Aziff didn't even have to lift her head to know who was speaking. After hearing the way dwarves spoke in the Carta she found Cole's speech patterns...nice. Musical.

"Thank you." the spirit answered her unsaid compliment.

"Don't let it go to your head." Aziff mumbled weakly against the desk, despite knowing it wouldn't. She wasn't even sure Cole _had _an ego.

"You want evidence. Proof that you are what they named you."

The Inquisitor raised her head and sighed. From her chamber she could see evening falling fast into night. The silhouette that was Cole stood slightly outside the bay windows.

She had gotten a lot of shit for allowing Cole to stay. She, politely, told those shit throwers to shove their complaints up their arses. Aziff had few experiences where people had wanted to help her. None where they had wanted it without something in exchange. The Carta always needed _something_, and if you could get it, it would cost you. A lot. Sometimes your life.

So, not but a month ago, Aziff is with this Envy demon who is wrecking through her mind, right? Technically, due to her race, she shouldn't even have to deal with this, and that lack of experience or warning or whatever had made her extra vulnerable. She hadn't a clue what was going on, or how to deal with it. All she had ever known was hitting things that threatened her. That didn't work in her mind. As if that wasn't bad enough, she hadn't known that her mental floundering had drawn attention from other spirits and demons. Envy had sliced open her mind like gutting a Bronto and now all the flies who had never tasted meat wanted to try. She had been in danger of losing herself, if not to Envy, then to the scores of lesser beings that waited for to take advantage of her weakened state.

One brave little spirit had gotten there first, however, and wasn't afraid to cross the Envy demon that had claimed her. He protected her, drove the others away and, after that was done, helped drive Envy out too. When her mind was her own again and she fought Envy in the flesh, he was there.

Aziff dealt with the Templars and had gotten then as an ally to the Inquisition; a major victory. But only because of one person. She turned the thank him, but he was gone. Andraste's knickers, he hadn't even asked a 'thank you'!

Cole had done far more boons to her than any others of her inner circle. He helped and helped and helped, but never asked for anything in return. He was altruistic and kind and it was _humbling _to hear him more than see him smile when they helped people, because that's all he ever wanted.

A thought crossed Aziff's mind. Who was more like a true disciple of Andraste? The 'chosen one' or the one that everyone dismissed as an evil demon?

"You don't know what to believe."

Aziff started. When had he gotten that close? The drooping brim of his hat was almost brushing her nose. The sprit was leaning over her desk, eyes hidden behind his hair, boring into her with an intensity she could _feel_.

"I...Your right." Of course he was. "I can't remain questioning forever; I've become a sodding holy symbol!"

She shook her head, looking down grimly at her hands. Palms that had once matched, no longer did.

Something cool wrapped around her marked hand. Cole's pale hand cradled Aziff's.

"Your evidence is here. This is all you need." his voice was barely above a whisper. It had a strange undertone to it. Reverence?

She _knew _what the mark was supposed to represent! What she needed was-

"You misunderstand. I - I did it wrong." Brows once peaceful furrowed. "Faith is slippery. Soap in your hand. The tighter you grip the less you have it. Sliding, slipping, gone, but not forgotten." He closed her hand into a fist, hiding the mark from view.

"You wait for faith to find you. This" -he tapped her knuckles- "is evidence of what you should be believing in."

Suddenly her eyes burned. She wanted to cry, but she hadn't cried in years. Ultimately, she decided against it. Instead she gave Cole a watery smile.

Was it an answer? No, not really. But it was something. Cole he - he didn't care about all this political stuff. He just wanted her to be okay.

Aziff smiled softly and covered her hand over his.

"Thank you." she whispered. Cole's own mouth quirked slightly into a ghost of her own expression.

"Happy to help."


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N I like Dorian, although I can't seem to garner as much approval with him as I would like -.- Sorry for the lack of Cole guys!_

_Ah well, for all you Dorian fans out there, here you go!_

#2 I'm Here

You could say a lot of things about Dorian. He was a mage. He was from Tevinter. He was cocky, headstrong, and self-entitled.

That being said, there were a lot of things you could _not _say about Dorian. He wasn't a coward. He wasn't complacent with how things were. He wasn't without sympathy nor compassion. He wasn't a bad man. Just...brought up different.

Aziff wasn't thinking about those things right now, although she would be later. All she hoped right now is that Dorian _would not let go of her hand for the Maker's sake!_

Dwarves didn't do well with open air. Height wasn't something you encountered underground a lot. _Depth _was something she was used to; a hole so dark you didn't know when the bottom was coming, but you knew it would be your last.

Dangling off a jagged cliff side in the Storm Coast with only your questionable mage to hold up left the Inquisitor with a very, very clear view of how she would die; rocks, ground, and gravity. Two of the three looked very small from her perspective.

"For a dwarf, you are _heavy_." Dorian grunted above her. She was sure the metal plates of her gauntlet were digging into the unprotected skin of his hand.

The weight was, of course, the armor, but it wasn't like she could do much about that _now._

She lurched down, her stomach nearly dropping out from under her and beating her to the ground. Dorian tossed his staff aside and used both hands to grasp at her; a renewed vigor as he struggled to keep her up. He was concentrating hard. Sweat beading on his forehead and one eye scrunched. His body was tense and taunt, what muscle he had desperately trying to be _enough_...

"Bull!" Aziff shouted when she noticed, horrified, that her mage was slowly but surely slipping forward, towards a similar fate as her own. The sound of combat never dinned above her and no response was made to her call.

"Dorian, you have to let go." Aziff demanded. Just past his pecks were now starting to show. Crumbling dirt and dust lightly rained on her.

Would she survive the fall? Probably not. But Andraste could burn in a pyre a second time before she would let any more noble blood be spilled in her name.

"What and drop the Herald of Andraste?" - a grunt- "Not going to happen, my dear."

_My dear. _Never 'My Lady'. Never 'Your Grace'. Just _my dear. _She had always liked him for that. She hated titles.

More chest peaked over the cliff side. It now seemed as though he were leaning down to her.

"COLE!" She felt the name leave her lips with desperation. It was too late for her, but not for Dorian. The spirit probably wasn't strong enough to pull them both up, but one would do.

Something niggled in her mind, like a nug rummaging around for food. It was something else; the name was just there, sitting heavy on her lips, but she knew it wasn't just to save Dorian, as bad as that sounded. If she could just see him...

_Poof._

It was something that was felt, not seen or heard. Typical Cole.

Dorian let out a sudden high pitched squeak and was yanked violently backwards with a strength that she was _sure _Cole didn't posses. She knew because she was dragged right along with him and got a mouth full of dirt. Surface dirt wasn't bad, strangely enough; she had tasted worse.

Coughing, Aziff glanced up. Cole had one of Dorian's ankles and the Iron Bull had the other, with the poor necromancer face first in the ground.

"Fighting, then air. Stomach lurching, wind whistling. _He caught me._" Cole spoke.

"Boss, you alright?" Iron Bull unceremoniously dropped Dorian's leg and stomped over to her. With one hand, he righted her.

"Fine," The inquisitor answered, "But I wouldn't have been had Dorian not saved me."

The mage, who had been helped up and partially dusted off by Cole, shot Aziff a winning smile.

"Well, we couldn't just have our Inquisitor die on us like that, could we? I do believe I've just saved our cause. You owe me."

"Ground against metal. A blur. Ice runs through veins, but it's not magical like before. He sees her and he fears frightening things. _No more death please not another one._"

Cole's narration silenced all. Dorian, doing as Dorian does, shatters it like a frozen enemy.

"Well, yes, yes. That's what I'm here for. Saving damsels and lighting the way with my scary Tevinter magic. Lets press on shall we?" Retrieving his staff, the mage leads the way.

A couple of hours later, Aziff corners him in camp.

"Thank you...for what you did today."

She couldn't bring herself to say it. _Thank you for saving my life. Thank you for risking yourself for me._ _Why did you do it? _She wasn't ready to admit her experience yet; how close she had actually been to death. It scared her. What terrified her even more was how ready she had been for it to claim her.

The necromancer waved it off. "Think nothing of it."

But she couldn't. "But you almost...you know...for me."

Another noncommittal gesture. "Nobody would have _died._"

Okay, that amount of understatement was almost insulting.

"Dorian-"

"Don't."

His tone was suddenly sharper. The flattered humility was gone, replaced by a word that cut through her proffered gratitude like a blade through bread.

"Don't...don't thank me Aziff. It's what I'm here for."

The dwarf tilted her head slightly. "And what exactly is that?"

"What, besides saving you from cliff sides?"

"Yes."

He sighed. It was like he was expelling sadness instead of air.

"I want change, Inquisitor." That hurt. He used the title. "For me. For my homeland. For the world. I just want a change for the better for once. You can do that, I believe. I have faith in you."

He retired to his tent shortly after the statement, leaving Aziff to wonder what it was that had ever made her doubt Dorian in the first place.

Not a coward. Not a bad man.

Just different.


	3. Chapter 3

#3. Funeral

The third time Cole ran away with the chickens, Aziff knew she had to stop him. They didn't have enough supplies for him to be hiding them away! The dwarf _knew _he didn't want the chickens to die , but it had to be done; they had a lot of mouths to feed and worlds were saved on empty stomachs.

So it was that Aziff slipped up the stairs that lead to the attic space that that Cole had taken up residency in. He was, in fact, there; along with six chickens.

"Cole..." Aziff began

"No. He was going to chop them early. They still had time left."

This...was going to be difficult.

"Cole, please...you know those chickens are for food. You have to return them."

Cole pulled the brim of his hat lower, as if his hair wasn't covering his face enough. With his other hand, he patted a chicken.

This was, as Aziff was well aware, Cole's own special breed of passive aggressive defiance. It was tiresome because he pretty much ignored the problem; something told Aziff that if he wasn't more human now, he would have just made her forget and sent her on her way.

"Cole-"

"I know. Can you...can we do something for them?"

Aziff was perplexed, but willing to hear him out.

"Okay, what do you want to do for them?"

The spirit scratched a chicken under the chin.

"I will kill them...then afterwards I want to bury them."

A good hundred reason why that wouldn't work jumped to the forefront of Aziff's mind, but she did her best to keep them at bay. What Cole was trying to do was sweet and noble, in a way. It was just...just...

"You want...a chicken funeral?" Saying in aloud, it sounded like a joke. Cole's expression was not.

"Yes." he answered.

"You realize we won't have bodies, right?"

"The feathers will be enough."

"The feathers?"

"Yes."

Okay, okay, she could work with this.

"Who else do you want to attend the funeral?"

Cole though for a moment. "Just the two of us. The others won't understand. Call us _silly _or _kid_."

Aziff didn't know if _she _understood, but she agreed. The others most definitely wouldn't. It was a wise choice on his part.

Cole started to gather up the chickens in his arms. They seemed rather docile around him, which was quite the feat.

"Meet me outside the walls in two hours."

And then he was gone.

* * *

><p>The funeral was short, but to the point. Aziff had brought a blossom of Crystal Grace with her, since she was pretty sure that was what you did at a surface funeral. Cole seemed happy about it, as he gingerly laid it on the middle of seven little mounds of dirt.<p>

He said a few words. Really nice words for chickens; as if he had known them. Maybe he had. It reminded Aziff of her first kill down in Orzammar. It had been a nug, pretty much the equivalent to a subterranean chicken. The usually docile creature had gone rabid. She had been young, unarmed, and sloppy; she bashed it head in and watched horrified as the little nug twitched and screeched in death. Aziff grimaced. She hated that memory and it came to haunt her in battle all too often. She attempted to give her opponents a better fate.

"Panic. Terror. Furiously fast _then frothing_. A river of red, winds screams through the pass, then silence. She whimpers as it twitches at last and the river stops flowing, despite the flood that is to come."

Yeah, Cole was bound to pick up on that.

"They didn't die that way." he amended. "Silent, swift. Easy and calm."

Aziff nodded. "Good."

Cole had finished speaking. Now they looked over the seven graves in silence.

Wait a minute...

"Hey Cole, weren't there only six chickens?" Had she miscounted? Maybe she, but the cook was never wrong.

He nodded.

"Yes. Six chickens and one nug."

* * *

><p>Three days later, Aziff smiled.<p>

The spirit barreled down the down stairs of the tavern, scaring half of the patrons out of their seats. Something small and fluffy was cupped tenderly in his hands. He ran up to her at the bar and it took every inch of Aziff's self control not to smile. The fluffy object was placed on the bar in front of her.

The chick wandered around the counter, cheeping amiably at the bartender, who sneered at it.

"You did this." Cole breathed. His face was inches from hers; the brim of his hat nearly touching his forehead.

Aziff took a sip of her ale to cover up her near break in resolve.

"His name is Ozrin."

The Inquisitor nearly choked on her drink in shock. Out of all the names her could have picked from, what were the odds it would have been that one?

Well, actually, Aziff knew the odds, and that guesswork really had nothing to do with it. She knew exactly where he had gotten that name from.

Cole seemed to deflate at her reaction. What once had been confidence was now doubt. He backed away.

"It's okay, right? I don't want it to hurt. I can change it, it you like."

Was it oaky?

Slowly, Aziff regained her composure. This time she didn't hide her smile from the spirit.

"No, no. Ozrin seems...right."

Ozrin; the name of her old pet nug.


End file.
